


persistence

by smithens



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, F/M, Found Families, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Emotional Abuse, M/M, Misogyny, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: If someone is worth holding in your heart, someday, they will assent to be.It was true of her.It is true of Thomas.
Relationships: Phyllis Baxter/Joseph Molesley, Thomas Barrow & Phyllis Baxter, Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 80
Kudos: 162





	1. 1924-1925 | 1890 - 1896

**Author's Note:**

> please heed the warnings.
> 
> (and, disclaimer, i've seen at least three barrow sisters named margaret & i'm hopping on that bandwagon, because it is a very nice name in context.)

"…never very kind to me." 

The words form the outline of a piece she had not known was missing.

It is then that she begins to understand.

* * *

Owing to the names of their fathers, Phyllis Baxter and Margaret Barrow meet at the age of eight, in hazy August.

_...but most everyone calls me Maggie._

_I don't have a nickname._

_Must you have one? Phyllis sounds so grown-up!_

_Do you really think so?_

She does not know on the first day of school, their desks adjacent — BARROW, M. and BAXTER, P. and BROWN, A. — how lucky she is to have been blessed with the friendship of the most loved girl in the neighbourhood.

* * *

When she arrived at Downton Abbey, he was not as she expected him to be.

This she had expected: they are separated on his side not only by the rifts of time, but of war; on hers, distance and imprisonment. They would not be as they were in their youth — when he was a child, and she a young woman. 

It does not take long for her to realise that it is far more than war, time and distance that have changed him. Between his childhood and adulthood there seems to be a great chasm, too deep and too wide to see into or beyond. Where he is concerned, the house is full of whispers. Phyllis knows that they are true, because she has always been right about him: he was not like the boys in his class, at church, and on the pavillion.

She says nothing. She will not be party to his destruction, no matter if he is himself.

But she has always had an affinity for Thomas Barrow. After all, he wasn't like the other boys, and his sister was not like her sisters. His parents were not like her own.

They lived in a house as one family, with the door always open and the fire always burning, food on the table each night, everyone clean and clothed.

Respected and respectable.

* * *

_Won't you stay for tea?_

For more than two months, Mrs Barrow asks her the same question almost every day. Phyllis does not say _yes_ until the very end of October, and afterward, Mr Barrow walks her home.

_Thank you very much, sir, I can manage from here._

_Isn't it further up the road?_

_Not very. I don't wish to be trouble, sir._

_You're no such thing, Miss Filly…_

He makes her laugh, and after she explains, haltingly, but a little less frightened, to whom she will be trouble if she is seen with him, he makes a very serious face, walks her as far as the corner, and stands to watch until she is indoors — not safe, but sheltered.

* * *

She has always been right about Thomas.

Except for this thing.

* * *

The first November she knows the Barrows is the first November the world knows Thomas.

 _He's so handsome,_ she says. She has never seen a baby up so close, but she does not think they all look like this: fair-skinned and pink-cheeked, a head full of soft dark hair, eyes the colour of the sea during a storm. 

Mrs Barrow says, _just like his father._

All winter, Mr Barrow is the happiest man in England. 

_And why shouldn't he be?_ says her mother, who does not seem to understand why she has said so out loud. _He finally has a son._

* * *

It was Mrs Barrow, all those years ago, who taught her persistence: if someone is worth holding in your heart, someday, they will assent to be. 

It was true of her.

It is true of Thomas.

* * *

From when she is ten, she passes four afternoons each week at the Brown house: three looking after the children with Abigail, and one cleaning. Mr Brown is a tailor, and he pays her for the work in sewing lessons. 

She would like to be a teacher. 

She will be a very good housemaid, instead.

* * *

Mr Molesley is brave and kind, the former more than he knows, the latter more than he wishes. It saddens her to see, but she knows, ruefully, that if he were not exactly as he was, she would not like him nearly so much, and he would not see her as a woman worth protecting.

She would like to disabuse him of the notion that kindness is weakness.

* * *

She is eleven when her uncle dies.

Six months after the funeral service, she asks Mr Barrow to walk her to the front door.

One year after, she shows Margaret her bedroom for the first time.

* * *

At night, in bed, when she is alone and the fear that has always been with her creeps into the attic of Downton Abbey, stifling and suffocating, she thinks about what the others say about Thomas, and wonders if she is wrong. If perhaps she is falling into the same trap, laid for her over and over. (Not all men are good. Not all men are kind. Not all men will be — not can be. Will be.)

And, night after night after night, she decides she is not. 

She thinks that he feels the fear, too.

* * *

Owing to the names of their fathers, Thomas Barrow and Caroline Brown meet at the age of six, in drizzly August.

Three weeks later, she walks with them both to the Brown house. Along the way they hold hands, _like Ralph and Abby_ and _like Maggie and Charles._ It's the sweetest thing she ever saw, and when they arrive, their fathers think so, too.

Naturally, they stop it the moment it's noticed, and she finds herself laughing along with the grown-ups.

 _In ten years,_ Mr Brown says, _we'll remember this as the day it all started._

Thomas, shy as ever and perhaps understanding more than he lets on, hides behind Phyllis's skirt, but Mr Barrow scoops him up high into his arms. He shows him the inside of the Browns' old grandfather clock, like new again, and, smiling ear to ear, tells him, _son, someday you're going to make me proud._

* * *

"…they've only got power over us if we let them."

_They._

_Us._

_We._

She is glad he sees her as with him, but she does not want either of them to be against the rest… and, deep down, as foolish and selfish and wrong as it may be, she does not want to be seen as responsible for her own downfall.

Courage comes up from her throat.

"You don't truly believe that, do you?" 

And then there is silence, only the whisper of wind through the leaves, the drip of water off the gutters, occasionally, voices carrying from behind the backdoor. It is not her place to break it.

Thomas keeps his eyes forward.

He takes a long drag from his cigarette. 

He shakes his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thankful acknowledgements to likehandlingroses, DarthNickels, Lomonte, and everyone else at whom i've bleated like a goat about the relationship these two have.


	2. 1925 | 1897-1900

"Then why," she murmurs, "why do you say it," only to find that she is uncertain if she ought to go on, to share what she is really thinking.

It is obvious in an instant that she should not. He puts out his cigarette and straightens.

When he is prepared to, Thomas can transform into a perfect picture of propriety at any given moment. It is not real; it is not genuine. It is like a moth forcing itself back into its cocoon, wrong and crumpling. 

" _Maybe,_ Miss Baxter," he starts, voice cold and clear, as though a knife could speak, "because if I _don't –_ "

They are interrupted by the Bateses, leaving together for the night, joyfully together after yet one more in a long line of undue partings.

She feels for them. She must. If she doesn't, envy will curdle in her stomach, and she will go into her own cocoon, one of guilt and loneliness, for she was not falsely accused, and no one collected her from behind bars.

And so she feels for them. She is glad for them.

But this is one trick of the trade that Thomas has never mastered, and they could not have chosen a worse time.

* * *

By the time of his seventh birthday, Thomas is not shy anymore. Sharp, bordering on precocious, but not shy.

He is outgoing, he laughs, he gets himself into scrapes and scuffles; of all the boys in his year he is the most adept with a football and a cricket bat, but he seems to prefer sitting on the little stool in his father's workshop, keen-eyed, soaking in every detail — cogs and pendulums and springs and levers.

She has always liked that best, too.

* * *

Months ago, he found the courage to ask her for her help.

Closer now though they may be, she finds herself wishing more and more that he would find it again.

* * *

She leaves school that winter, because she is not going to be a teacher.

She is nearly fifteen. Her family is poor, and she is under no illusions as to their reputation. She is lucky to have stayed as long as she has.

 _What are you going to do now?_ Abigail asks her.

 _Mrs Carter has asked me to be her maid-of-all-work,_ says Phyllis. She is placing hair pins ever so carefully in Margaret's thick, dark hair, for practise. She has some dreams left: she will not be a maid-of-all-work forever. This is a skill she must learn to move forward.

And it is very fun indeed, to wear their hair up at long last.

 _But that's only down the street from our house!_ Margaret exclaims. _If I were to be a maid… why, I'd go to London, or some other elegant place…_

Margaret is not to be a maid. Margaret is to finish the year at school, keep books for her father and house for her mother, and then, when the time is right, marry Charles Young. No self-respecting child of an artisan would willingly go into service.

 _I should like to be near my friends,_ Phyllis returns, _at least for a little while._

It means the same as if Abigail had said she would like to be near her family.

* * *

"Well," he says, tapping his cigarette over the ashtray as though the matter is trivial. "I don't know about that."

His eyes are downcast, but there is a hint of a smile at his lips, small and charming. If she had complimented him on anything else, he would not be so bashful.

Perhaps she'll see him in a good mood today after all.

"Oh, get off your high horse," Daisy interjects, cross — she has been more and more, lately, and Phyllis worries for her, as well. "They love you more than Mrs Patmore's jam tarts, an' it's clear you care for 'em too; anyone with eyes can see it."

It is clear also that Thomas is now about to say something cruel, and Phyllis wishes she had the nerve to stop him. 

In the end, however, she doesn't have to, because Mr Bates draws attention away from Daisy with some cruelty of his own: "we must all make do with what we have, isn't that right, Thomas?"

But this is prodding at a hornet's nest.

Thomas sits back in his chair, takes his time exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Well, I suppose after five years of marriage you'd know that better than I would, wouldn't you, Mr Bates."

Anna squeezes her eyes shut, drops her sewing, and rushes out of the servants' hall.

Her husband is close behind her.

"And that's _Mr Barrow_ to you," Thomas calls after them.

The terse silence that follows is broken by Mrs Patmore coming from the passage: "did I hear you say something about the jam tarts, Daisy?"

"Just that I'll be puttin' them in the oven shortly!" Daisy calls. She glares at Thomas, rises from her chair with a clamour, and stomps off.

"Mr Barrow," Phyllis starts, gently, but he interrupts her with, "oh, did you think I'd forget who started it, Miss Baxter?" 

And then he, too, is gone.

The moments when he is hardest to love are also those when it is most obvious why.

* * *

She lets the tucks out of her dresses and wears her hair teased at the front, curled into a knot at the top of her head. 

She begins to feel like she might be beautiful after all.

 _My dear! you've always been beautiful,_ Mrs Barrow tells her one afternoon. Mrs Carter is generous with half-days, one every fortnight and every Sunday morning, and she spends them all with the Barrows.

_Isn't it vain to think so?_

_Not when it's true._

_But is it true, really?_

Margaret, with her full, black hair that hardly requires backcombing, and her straight nose and high cheekbones, her porcelain skin, blue-eyed and adored by all, floats up the stairs to proclaim as though in a recital hall, _oh, I've always envied you, Phyllis, you have such a lovely jaw, mine is so boyish. Even Charlie thinks so — about yours, of course, he's never insulted me, thank goodness! do you know, Louise tells such awful things of Rob; I really cannot envy her._

She does not know how to accept this compliment, and it is Thomas, always on the hem of his older sister's skirt, who saves the day.

By being tremendously awkward.

 _You should do, though,_ he says, with the dry gravitas of an eight-year-old who thinks he knows everything. _Rob's much more handsome._

 _You know what, Thomas, you're not going to marry either of them,_ Margaret snaps, _so keep your foolish thoughts to yourself._

Mrs Barrow frowns.

Phyllis has the sense that this is not the first time he has said such a thing.

* * *

Never in her life has she been a confrontational woman.

The thought that she might have to be brings bile to her throat.

* * *

She carries Mrs Carter's watch as though it were made of silver and rubies.

It is not made of those things; it is very ordinary. But it was the departed Mr Carter's, and if anything happens to it she will certainly be sacked with no reference… after which she will waste away and die of guilt, to have failed in her protection of something so priceless.

When she hands it to Mr Barrow it is as though an elephant has been poached from her shoulders.

 _Is there anything to be done?_ she asks, once he's opened it. Her employer is very gracious, but she suspects that if there is not, it will be seen as her fault.

 _There's always something to be done,_ he says, _never met a problem I couldn't solve somehow, have I, Miss Filly?_

It is an exaggeration; she is grown enough now to know that not everything can be fixed, not even somehow. But in his presence, she feels safe and loved, and that is a solution to many quandaries.

_— Thomas, lad, tell me what's wrong with this one._

She hasn't seen him in weeks, and when he approaches she's surprised by what she sees.

_Goodness! what's happened?_

_What's happened is I'm the best rugby player this place has ever seen._ But he doesn't say it like he's proud of the fact… then, he always was scolded for that sin in particular at Sunday school. Perhaps he's trying to grow out of it and swinging too far in the other direction. 

When she was ten, she made herself grow out of a lot of things. It's a special time.

Mr Barrow ruffles his hair, beaming. _Our boy's getting to be quite the sportsman._

 _I'm sure you're having such fun, but do please be careful,_ Phyllis tells him. It's a lighthearted chiding, for she knows very well that boys his age are rowdy enough in lawn bowling. Rugby must be like going to war. _You won't be able to throw a football if you break your arm._

His lip is split; he smiles and winces at the same time.

 _Now, son,_ says Mr Barrow. _Let's have a look at the escapement, here…_

* * *

"You're more than you give yourself credit for."

She takes her foot off the pedal of her sewing machine and looks up.

From the doorway into the dining hall, Thomas meets her eyes, intent, steely. With conviction, he says, "I mean it."

And then he's gone, down the passage.

"What was all that?" asks Andy, crease in his brow.

"Nothing, Andy," she says, "nothing to worry about."

That is a lie. It is something.

Not, she believes, something to worry about, but something.

* * *

Mr and Mrs Paxton live in a beautiful house in the city, and though they are not so indulgent in time off, they pay her more to be one of two housemaids than Mrs Carter could afford for a single maid of all work.

She's moving up. 

She's making her own way.


	3. 1925 | 1902-1905

"Perhaps Mr Bates shouldn't throw stones in glass houses," he says lazily. "How was I to know that – "

"You did know."

The words take tremendous effort, but she manages them.

They lock eyes.

She breaks first, turning away with her head and her shoulders, distancing herself. 

But she knows that she is right, for if he didn't know the score, he would not try time and time again to settle it. She doesn't know how to tell him this, and she thinks, too, that he already knows. What use would it do to bring his attention to the matter, when he already knows it more intimately than she ever will? What could she possibly say to him that will not seem a cruel reminder of the things he keeps walled up in the back of his mind?

Thomas is trying. To her, this is obvious, though the rest of the house seems to have nary an inkling of it. He is trying so hard that he is fraying at the edges, and like a dog licking its wounds, he seems to think that pulling out his loose threads will stop the fray entirely. 

"You don't know," he says, haltingly, "what it's like."

They are no longer talking about the Bateses and the soon-to-be Carsons.

"No," she says, "I don't."

It seems he expected her to argue; before he can change tactics, lash out in a different direction, she takes a deep breath. She knows that he is trying to convince himself that he is alone. "I'll never understand it the way you do, Mr Barrow, not for as long as I live."

Thomas is silent; he gathers himself up and puts out his cigarette, soullessly.

Now is her last chance. 

Phyllis looks up, once more toward him. "But someone does."

Something flashes in his eyes, and she feels innately she has made a mistake. When she opens her mouth to speak, however, Thomas shakes his head. 

"Well," he says, brittle. "Then I wish he'd stop by." 

And then he's leaving.

As she hears the back door shut, she finds herself wishing he had snapped at her instead.

* * *

On a lovely spring day, partly sunny and flowers blooming, Miss Margaret Barrow becomes Mrs Charles Young.

She borrows a silk corset cover and shift from Abigail, and Phyllis does her hair for the occasion. It's a current fashion, something she saw in a magazine: high in the front, a braided knot on the top, entwined with embroidered blue ribbon and adorned with rayon orange blossoms. Only the three of them know that what is on top of her head matches what is around her stockings. 

The gift had seemed silly while she was sewing it, a hair ribbon and suspenders, but she says she loves it, and Phyllis believes her.

_What about the rest?_

Margaret purses her lips; Phyllis looks to Abigail, who will know what that look means this time.

_You must mean to wear it!_

_Not down the aisle, surely._

_Yes, down the aisle! oh, Phyllis, Thomas made her the most wonderful bracelet, it ought to be her something new —_

_The gown is my something new,_ says Margaret curtly. 

Phyllis looks back and forth between them, concerned.

 _Are you in a quarrel with him?_ she asks.

 _We are in nothing of the sort,_ Margaret replies, again cool and short. _We are in nothing at all — isn't it odd? Jewelry, from a boy of twelve? Charles thinks it's odd._

 _I think it's splendid,_ Phyllis says, truthfully.

Margaret lifts her chin and sucks in her cheeks. _Fine._

* * *

About three years ago, she sat in a rickety chair in the cold hall of an old and dirty boarding house, poring over advertisements in the paper, contrary with herself: resolved and resigned at once.

Looking at Thomas now is like looking into a mirror.

* * *

On her way down the stairs, she nearly collides with Thomas, who is barreling up them. 

They stop with three steps between them.

Though he is now thirteen and well approaching the age when boys are awkward, too long some places and too short others, voices faltering, gangly… Thomas is not awkward at all. Not yet, at least, although if he is at all like his sister he will go from boy to man just as she went from girl to woman: gracefully and easily. 

Phyllis had no such luck, herself.

_What, you're not leaving yet, are you?_

He's breathless and smiling, his hair soaked, clothes muddy. 

_I'm afraid I am,_ she replies. She's never seen him like this; his grin is contagious. _Where on Earth have you been? Your mother's been dreadfully nervous._

 _Hockey scrimmage,_ he says. He swipes his arm across his forehead and then shakes out his hair like a dog _. The pitch is a blo – it's a mess._

Phyllis steps up and away from him, laughing. _By the look on your face I suppose you won?_

_No, we lost._

In the yellow light of the stairwell gas lamps, she can see the purple, blue and green at the edge of his face. _What's happened there?_

_Where?_

She points.

 _Oh, yeah,_ he says, fingertips to his temple. _Er, James got me with a stick day before yesterday._

Boys will be boys and do boyish things, she supposes, and she means to express more sympathy, but Thomas is hasty to go on. _Anyway, don't go thinking it was my fault we lost, 'cause I scored every time they let me play forward._

The press of his lips tells her that this was not as often as he would have liked. 

_I've never known you to be so happy over losing._

His lips part and his eyes narrow in exasperation. Phyllis finds it very sweet. _I'm not happy over losing,_ he says, as though she really thought he might be. _I'm happy over…_ Thomas cuts his own thought short, and she follows his gaze up behind her, to the door of his home, and below, through the passage to his father's shop. There is something different in his face now, and she swallows, nervous. _Phyllis, you'd keep me a secret, wouldn't you?_

It seems a bad idea to say yes.

_Of course I would._

_You've got to promise you won't ever tell anyone._

Quite a bad idea indeed, but he's piqued her curiosity. She supposes that if this is a happy secret there is no harm in her keeping it.

_I promise._

He bounds up the few remaining stairs between them and leans to whisper something into her ear; when he pulls away, he's beaming again, proud and self-assured.

She laughs. _With who?_

He shakes his head. _No one you'd know._

_Not Caroline Brown, then?_

His smile fades. 

She ought to have known better than to joke about such things, and she hastens to right her wrong: _I'm sorry, Thomas,_ she murmurs. _I was teasing._

He nods. The look now on his face makes him seem like a lost puppy dog even more than his wet hair does. _Are you happy for me, though?_

 _Certainly I am,_ she answers, because it's true. _Why shouldn't I be?_

There's that sweet smile of his again. _No reason._

She supposed right. She will keep this secret gladly.

* * *

"It was a different time in those days," Mr Bates says thoughtfully, and Daisy scoffs. 

"I were _there,_ Mr Bates, you don't need to explain it like I weren't."

"You were here, in fact," says Anna cheerily. She holds out her hand, and Phyllis places a sewing pin in it. In all the excitement they have both lapsed in certain duties; it is easier to catch up if they work together.

"Oh, God, was I?"

"That you were, Daisy," Thomas says. He doesn't look up from his newspaper. 

"But that means I've spent more than half me life here…"

"That you have, Daisy."

"You must've done, too, then – "

"I'm older than you think I am," he interrupts, turning the page. "But in fact, the hallboy wasn't even born yet when you and I started — might as well face it, you're in the old guard with me."

Anna laughs. "I remember when you _both_ started… we've all come quite a long ways since 1910, haven't we?"

This, of all things, is what draws Thomas away from the classifieds. He lowers the paper and raises his eyebrows. "Most of us," he says.

"Are you excluding yourself from that assessment, then, Mr Barrow?"

They all scramble to stand; the pincushion falls to the floor.

"No, Mr Carson," Thomas replies. "I was only making a joke." A moment ago he was lighthearted, dry and witty; now he is curling and uncurling his hand into a fist.

Mr Carson narrows his eyes and harrumphs, but he says nothing further on the subject. "Andrew, have you forgotten that – "

"I haven't, Mr Carson," Andy says, and he darts into the passage. Mr Carson follows, leaving room to breathe in the servants' hall.

Phyllis picks up the pin cushion, places it beside Anna, and goes to sit by Thomas.

"What _did_ you mean, most of us?"

"I was only making a joke," he repeats.

* * *

Although she has fewer of them, she still takes her half-days with the Barrows, and the Youngs always come over when she does.

This afternoon she is surprised to see Thomas cleaning rifles on the kitchen floor.

 _We're going to the moss,_ he says, without looking at her. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows; the skin of his right forearm is mottled with purple and brown. Confounded and frightened, she does not listen to the voice in her head that tells her those bruises are unlikely to have come from sport. _For wildfowling._

Mr Barrow gives her a hug as a greeting, just like if she were his own daughter, and his smile is warm as ever. _We'll make a man out of him yet._

The boy is fourteen and fast maturing. 

Phyllis suspects he will soon be a man without anyone's making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea how many chapters are going to be in this, i keep getting carried away and having to split things off in different places. whoops


	4. 1925 | 1906

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just pretend the series 6 events chronology lines up (it doesn't) (but pretend it does)

_Oh, thank you, dear, you've been such help… what was your name?_

_Phyllis Baxter, ma'am._

_And you are a housemaid, Phyllis, is that right?_

_Yes, ma'am._

And just like that, she's poached.

They even pay for her to move to London.

* * *

"Sometimes I wish he would hang," she says softly, and where anyone else might have been shocked to hear her express that she has such thoughts, Thomas only tilts his head.

"No harm in wishing, is there," he says. His voice is not as sharp as it could be. 

It reminds her of a memory.

"Do you really believe that?" Phyllis asks, and he shrugs.

"Not something to believe or not believe in, is it? It's true," he says. His voice is careful now, and guarded. They may be growing closer, but he's prone to bristle at talk of belief in anything whatsoever. "If I ever didn't, I do now."

"You – last year, when you were ill – "

"Don't."

She looks down at her mending, at the straight stitches which came from her hands, at the silk free of snags. Reinforced. She tells herself she is strong and capable, that she can be mended too, that the mending has already begun and that it is always ongoing if only she gives it her attention, but she cannot make herself believe it, not when she feels it's wrong. 

Where would she be now, if it weren't for Peter Coyle?

Thomas repeats himself. "No harm in wishing, Miss Baxter."

"You," she starts, unthinking, but she lets the word trail off, thought unfinished.

"I what?" Abrasive.

"You wouldn't like to hear it," she murmurs, and then she regrets it — she ought to have lied. An insistence that he oughtn't know about something for fear of insult will only encourage him; Thomas is a perpetual glutton for punishment.

But she'll rue saying it even if he begs. She's come to understand that now.

"Try me," says Thomas, unconcerned. 

When she bites her lip, he raises his eyebrows.

"Can't really be as bad as all that, can it, Miss Baxter, if it's a thought out of your head."

 _If only you knew all what I think,_ she wants to say, but then she recalls how this started, and she holds her tongue.

In that regard.

"I was only thinking that you sounded like your dad."

Thomas leans back in his chair, contemplative.

This is not what she expected, and her heart pounds all the harder for it.

"He told you that?" he says after a moment. She has no idea what to make of the look on his face, the strange, soft quality in his voice, and she nods.

This seems to stopper the conversation entirely.

* * *

On Bond Street one morning she runs into Ralph Montgomery.

They exclaim greetings and share so-good-to-see-yous — they have never really gotten on, not since he and Abigail fell out as children what must be ten years ago now, but home breathes life into unexpected places.

* * *

"Funny he did," Thomas says eventually, drawing his cigarette back up to his lips. "I always wished that about him."

* * *

_I don't suppose you've time this evening?_

_I'm on errands for Miss Hartford,_ she tells him. She finds she is sad to say it. _I must be back by half-five._

It is nice to be on his arm, and, too, his smile is more handsome than she remembers.

 _All grown up and a working woman,_ he says. 

_I'm older than you are, Mr Montgomery,_ she returns, and the words are sweet from her mouth without her trying.

_By but two months, Miss Baxter!_

In her dizziness she forgets to cover her mouth when she laughs.

* * *

"…I suppose I felt about my family much the same as you feel about yours."

It is odd to say, because she knows now that she feels very differently about Thomas's family than he does. 

"Glad you had mine, then," he says. "Even if I didn't."

He won't look at her.

She knows he's telling the truth.

* * *

She stands a foot away from him, heart pounding, a thrill down her spine.

 _They mustn't see you,_ she says. _It isn't proper._

 _No,_ Ralph says, _no, I've no mind to get you into trouble,_ and then he smiles. _Out in the city, unchaperoned! Mum'd be furious._

_We're rather old for that, aren't we?_

_I don't know. I never stepped out with anyone at the proper time for it._

Because he was working, just as she was. It's nice to be understood.

 _Perhaps when I'm next up to London,_ he starts. It's the beginning of a question. He bites his lip and looks away.

Phyllis takes a deep breath. _Perhaps it's much too forward of me to say,_ she begins, and though she also falters, when they laugh, it is together.

* * *

"…you could have a new start," she hears, and then there is Thomas, leaving the boot room, stormy.

One look at his face tells her that she would be better served by speaking to Anna than going after him.

One look at Anna's face tells her that she was right.

"I don't know how you do it," Anna says. She is scraping dirt from the soles of one of Lady Mary's shoes; her words are perfectly nonchalant, but she looks exhausted. "Every time I try…" 

She understands what she means, of course. 

"I don't know how, either," Phyllis confesses. 

"Maybe you try more often," Anna suggests. There's a twitch in her lips; she's almost smiling. Upon looking closer, Phyllis wonders if the exhaustion is to do with something else than Thomas; she hopes, a little ruefully, that it is. "Sometimes I think, if perhaps I'd ever…" 

Sadness settles in her heart, and Phyllis shakes her head. "We all do," she says quietly.

"Yes," Anna says, "yes, I suppose that's true."

* * *

Mrs Barrow dies in the middle of autumn. 

Phyllis allows Mrs Gordon, Miss Hartford's kind old housekeeper, to believe that the woman is her aunt, more dear than her own mother. She is given two full days off to go home.


	5. 1906

_Cricket,_ he says. _Last game of the season. Batsman hit the ball right into my jaw._

_That's horrible!_

It is only the three of them at the Barrows' little dining table: Mr Barrow is resolving a matter at the hospital, and Charles is at work.

Margaret is staring at the ceiling.

Ever since she married, she's been growing further and further apart from her brother, and Phyllis doesn't know what to make of it. She would like to think she has rotten luck, that she only meets them on bad days — certainly that would account for this visit. Or, that perhaps it is a phase which will soon end. They are young women, and he is a boy of fifteen. Sixteen, shortly enough. It would not be the first time.

 _Weren't so bad,_ Thomas replies, _he only got one run out of it._

Phyllis nods, wary. The nonchalance with which he speaks of his various blows and tumbles has always startled her.

She is more startled when he adds, in a strange voice, _and Caroline was there, but she didn't see it happen, so don't you go asking her for the story._

_I… I didn't intend to._

_Yeah, well, don't start. I can take care of myself._

She nods, looks away. She feels like she ought to be apologising, but she doesn't know what for.

 _You're incorrigible, Thomas,_ Margaret retorts. _Speaking of Miss Brown, didn't you have somewhere to be this afternoon?_

He stands abruptly, jerking the table. _If that's how it is, I'll go stay the night with the Irvings._

_Absolutely not._

_Why?_

_Don't pretend like you don't know._

_Oh, but Meg, I don't think that I do,_ he says, and for a moment, Phyllis is reminded of him from years ago, a little boy sweet-talking his way out of trouble for pilfering biscuits. But then it is gone, and there is only the smoulder in his eyes, the words dripping from his mouth like venom from a snake's fangs. _Oliver's sister's in Blackburn, so it's not as if you've got to worry about my being improper. I could spend a whole week there if I liked._

Phyllis has never before in her life seen him behave like this, but it is Margaret who surprises her more. She stands, red-faced, eyes narrowed and fists clenched. _Thomas, you will do no such thing._

 _Really? I think I just may._ And then he's halfway to the stairs. _By the way,_ he calls over his shoulder, sneering, _your Miss Brown and I are expecting!_

_You know very well you're not welcome in that house!_

Phyllis stares at her lap, frozen. In her head, she knows what this is truly about; in her heart, she doesn't want to.

Seething, Margaret rushes after her brother, stopping at the top of the landing.

Their shouting shakes the walls.

_We're going to hitch a freightcar up to Gretna Green tomorrow —_

_Thomas, you get back up here this moment or I'll —_

_Do me a favour and tell the old man where I've gone why don't you —_

_I'll lock the doors if you go —_

_That's what you bloody want, isn't it —_

_Don't you think I won't –_

_Or would you rather we stick around and get the banns read —_

_The Irvings don't want you any more than I do —_

_Show everyone what a lovely —_

_You'll sleep on the street and you'll deserve it —_

_Fucking family —_

_Thomas, don't you DARE go out that door —_

_The Barrows are —_

_Thomas!_

The door slams.

Margaret bursts into tears.

*

Thomas is back the next morning.

Between breakfast and luncheon that day, she takes him on a walk, if only because she thinks he might need it. He is bristly and unkind, but he is grieving.

_…yeah, but I didn't ask you now did I, so get off my arse about it._

She will not let him bare his fangs at her, because he should not have them at all.

Transparently, she changes the subject.

_When did you start using such language?_

_Yesterday,_ he snipes _._ But he has the sense to be embarrassed, and he stops walking and stares at his shoes.

Phyllis laughs. She forces herself to, because she is beginning to feel as though she will cry if she doesn't. _You're really not a boy anymore, are you, Thomas?_

He shakes his head. _Sorry,_ he mumbles. _I haven't been my best for you, have I._

And there he is, just like that, the child she remembers.

 _Through no fault of your own,_ she tells him. She tugs on his hand like the old days, and they continue their walk down the street. _Losing someone makes us all feel horrid._

_What do you mean, no fault of my own._

_Oh, Thomas, we don't really have a hold over our feelings, no matter what Miss Fowler is telling you in Sunday school._

He says nothing.

 _I think on today of all days you can be forgiven for showing you have bad ones,_ Phyllis adds.

_No, I mean – it's my fault she's gone, isn't it._

He's serious.

_Your mother was very ill._

_Yeah, and why was that, then?_

Too serious.

 _Thomas,_ she says softly, _it had nothing to do with you._

_But I –_

_I promise._

_But Meg says –_

_I don't give a damn at all what Margaret says, this was no more your fault than it was mine._

_How can you know that?_

_I can._

He lets go of her hand and kicks the gravel at their feet into a spray around them. She does not scold him for it. He is not now and has never been in her charge, and the boy has just lost his mother.

But he likes to have the last word, and he cannot stay silent forever. 

She waits, and eventually, it comes.

_When did you start using such language?_

Again there is a smile playing at his lips, self-important and self-amused.

 _Yesterday,_ she tells him. She wraps her arm around his waist, pulls him close and minds his head, and his struggle is both half-hearted and thwarted by his own laughter — sometimes all one needs is a hug.

As if knowing they could do with cheering up, the clouds above them part, and the sun is warm on their faces. The rest of the walk is pleasant. Thomas, himself, is pleasant.

Secretly, she wishes he were her brother instead.

*

 _…be fixing a clock,_ he snarls, _like I'm meant to._

_Mum wouldn't like it –_

_Do you see her anywhere?_

_Thomas, what a boorish thing to say –_

But he's gone.

 _How dare he,_ Margaret huffs. Tears bud in her eyes.

Phyllis takes her hand and squeezes it. _Surely he's –_

_What! Acting out? He's always like this._

He wasn't this morning, she wants to say, but she doesn't.

*

The tombstone, modest and unassuming, was set two weeks prior, and the pile of earth has been tamped by rain. They stand there together in silence until he asks her an unexpected question.

It takes her a moment before she can answer. 

_I've seen lovely things and places,_ she says slowly. _But I shan't lie. The duties are rather dreadful._

_Bet you don't ever cut your fingers setting watchfaces, though._

_No,_ she laughs, for he'd said it with a smile. His wit, so like Margaret's — so like what Margaret's once was, has always charmed her. _But you mustn't run off to be a hall boy over a cut finger!_

He laughs, too. _Must be nice, though, in a way._

It is nice because she has no other option. _I don't know many like you who would call it that, but it is for me._

The laughter falters; his lips twist.

_Like me._

She looks away. _Your family has always been… better off, than mine, Thomas._

Not merely better off, she thinks. Better.

_Oh._

She is afraid to wonder what he thought she meant, so she says nothing.

 _I didn't mean… it's not… I don't look down on you._ He takes hold of her upper arm, crunching her sleeve, and she turns toward him again. _I just meant… knowing you're set up with room and board and all that. So long as you keep working._

_Oh, but Thomas! anyone should be lucky in your place, to know a skill and have a shop…_

_Yeah,_ he says. _Yeah, I – everyone says that, and I know how lucky I am, I do, but…_

He trails off. She decides she won't prompt him. He's old enough now to think before he speaks, and she feels as though this isn't the time to put words into his mouth, either way.

He is quiet for a very long while.

_Phyllis?_

_Yes?_

_Maybe I'm different._

He is very different, she has come to understand, and very special. But grief does silly things to one's head, and this bright, capable, ambitious young man cannot possibly be turning his eyes to domestic service, of all things.

_Maybe I want to do something different._

She says nothing about the tears in his eyes.

Instead, she wraps her arms around him again and squeezes.


	6. 1925 | 1908-1914

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings/notes:** implied suicide (canonical), minor original character death.

Margaret never mentions her brother in her letters, and Phyllis knows better than to ask. She thinks she will not like the answers to her questions.

* * *

Thomas starts to open up more than he ever has before — or perhaps that's not the right phrase, 'opening up'. He doesn't share much more than he ever did, and nor does he ask more questions, but he doesn't snap so often as he used to, either, not with her nor with anyone else. Of course, with the others he is all too often churlish and harsh, just as he has always been, but he has his moments, too, when they're talking... Moments that make her wonder what is changing in him. 

She would like to think that he is choosing to seek out her company, but it is probably wishful thinking. There are only so many places she moves through in this grand house, after all. What he is, she supposes, is seeking out _any_ company. He passes most of his time when he is not working nor with the children in the servants' hall, hovering at the edges, watching. He has less to say than he used to.

But they do talk.

* * *

She consents to meet with Ralph the next time he is in London: it will be their sixth time, and that is to say nothing of the letters — and even, once, at Christmas, a telegram. But he's been busy and so has she; it has been far too long since they last met face to face. 

She does her hair for the occasion and is careful to conceal the novel twists and curls beneath her hat, so that Mrs Gordon is none the wiser as to how she is using her half-day. 

_You'll cover for me?_ she asks Sarah, not for the first time. _If I'm late?_

Sarah, younger than she, is so bright-eyed and lively not even the drab gray dress of her uniform can stifle it. Eager to help, she picks a bit of lint from Phyllis's shirtwaist, gives her a brush upon the shoulders, fluffs her sleeves. _You won't be late,_ she says. She hands her her gloves, just blued, and drapes her shawl around her shoulders. She feels more beautiful than she has in months… since the last time he was up, in fact. _You're never late — but 'course I will! Besides, he's not like my Isaac, is he? He'll get you back, and he'll be right on time to fetch you, too, you'll see._

He is. 

They walk through Regent's Park, her on his arm like always. Couples, older and younger and richer and poorer than they, abound. Though they don't row (for neither of them have the money), they watch the boaters on the lake and the little children skipping around on the beach, boots and stockings discarded in the sand, and he shows her how to better skip stones. It is an excuse to touch and a poor one, but she likes her wrist in his hand, likes her shoulder against his chest. When she laughs, she sees out of the corner of her eye a matronly old woman scoff, and she doesn't care a whit.

She likes it, she knows, more than is good for her.

They pass the better part of the afternoon and some of the evening there, too, and then it is time for her to return to the house, and for him to rush off to Euston.

Before they go, Ralph takes her hand and asks her if she has ever thought of leaving service. 

Phyllis knows what he is really asking, and though it is unbearable, though it breaks her heart, she tells him no. She knows her place. She knows what can and cannot be. 

They do not see one another again.

They are never going to be young like they once were.

* * *

The last thing she wants to be is resentful — not of Mr Molesley, especially not now that she has come to better understand her feelings where he is concerned, and certainly not of Daisy, who deserves only admiration and congratulations for her efforts. But she does not care to remember her own dreams, long discarded, and in their presence she finds it impossible not to.

By accident, she mentions it to Thomas.

"You wanted to be a teacher," he repeats.

"I think I mostly liked to look after children," she says, feeling defensive, but he only smiles, sad.

"You don't need to tell _me_ that…"

"No, I suppose I don't."

He taps some ash off of his cigarette and looks away from her, back toward the house. "Always wanted to do more than just service, me," he says. His tone is vague. "Don't know anything else, though, do I, Miss Baxter?"

Phyllis is not entirely sure she agrees with that. Though he's never spoken of it — she would never ask him to — she's heard of what he did in the war from Her Ladyship, and while not everything they do in service can serve them very well outside of great houses, some of it can. She would know. Making ends meet when she couldn't find a place in any house in England taught her that.

She asks him if he's looked at anything else, if there are places he's considered in other fields. 

"I have, actually," he says. "Enquired with a few."

"And?" she asks, hesitant.

"And they weren't all that keen on hiring a bloke who's spent the last six years waiting at table when he could've been making something more of himself, I'll say that much."

* * *

Each month she sends along what earnings she can spare. She has made her choice, and she mustn't be resentful. It was always going to be the way it is.

Her siblings and cousins that do not go to houses go to factories, mines and railways. 

Slowly but surely, she loses touch with home. 

* * *

"...Mr Mason all the time, and you're right it _is_ hard for him, but…"

"It's good he has you, then, isn't it?"

Phyllis pauses just before she is in the doorway of the servants' hall, sewing kit in one hand and silk shifts slung over her other arm. Thomas and Daisy, speaking cordially, in low voices… it shouldn't surprise her, they have in the past, but something about this feels different than the times before it. Perhaps for that reason she shouldn't listen in. 

"Meant what I said, though, Daisy," says Thomas. "Wish I'd figured it out when it mattered, I could've…"

"Yeah," Daisy replies. "I wish a lot of things, meself, really, I never… William were always… you know I never felt for him like..." 

"I remember. 'S just as I said."

"About – _deserving?_ "

"Yes, about that."

"It does help," she says, "only I still don't know what you're telling _me_ for…"

"Not about to march down to Yew Tree and tell his father, am I?"

"I just meant – why _now_?"

There is a very long pause. 

Though she does not peer around the door frame to look for herself, Phyllis imagines that he is smoking. He is, often, and it tends to buy him the time he wants without fail.

"Well," says Thomas eventually. "I'll be leaving soon, won't I?"

"Have you found a place, then?" asks Daisy, hopeful and for his sake. 

The search has grown more dire, and though none of them say it aloud… it's difficult, watching him leave for interviews and return empty-handed and more spiteful than he was when he left. Of course, the spite is lessening, lately, but she knows better by now than to assume that's a good sign.

Even Mr Bates is beginning to root for him.

"Not yet…"

Eavesdropping leaves a strange taste in her mouth.

She heads for the laundry wing. She'll sew, as is proper, in the sewing room.

* * *

Her mother's death draws her north for the first time in four years.

She did not love her mother, and she cries for that reason. Mr Barrow calls her by her nickname and lets her bury her face into his shoulder, dampening his jacket with tears; Margaret takes her hand and squeezes.

Not one of the three of them says the word _Thomas._

* * *

The pieces fall into place all at once.

When the kitchen courtyard comes into view, she starts running.

* * *

_You're joking,_ she exclaims. _A servant?_

 _Oh, she isn't,_ says Louise. 

_Abby!_

_Don't shoot the messenger,_ Abigail tells her. _And Meg only told a few months ago, though it's been what! Five years, since he's shown his face round here? Six? Must've been six by now…_

Louise adds, _he ran away in the night like a thief._

_Why, I never knew Mr Barrow could be angry at all, and –_

_– he was just outraged, Phyllis, it was horrible. I don't think anybody on Earth ever heard him raise his voice before then, but –_

_He shouted?_ asks Phyllis, incredulous.

 _Yeah,_ says Abigail, hushed, though it is only they three in the sitting room. Rob, thankfully, is out for the evening, and Abby's own husband, whom Phyllis has never met and perhaps never will, is running late to fetch her. _Yeah, Dad brought it up at church, and he…_

Abigail and Louise share a look. 

Phyllis does not want to know what it means.

 _I can't imagine,_ she says. _How awful — did Meg ever say where it was he'd gone?_

The truth is astounding in more ways than one, and deep down it makes her jealous, too. He'd have had no experience, no reference, no background, and now he's twenty-three years old and first footman in a great house… 

He may have taken it in entirely the wrong direction, but ambition did get Thomas far.

* * *

"...I don't suppose it's worth locking the door to the women's corridor."

"Oh, Mrs Hughes, I couldn't ask – "

"Quite right, and that's why I'm telling you."

Phyllis dabs her handkerchief at her eyes again, embarrassed. It is always the moment she thinks the tears are through… 

But Mrs Hughes embraces her, and they cry together.

* * *

The household dissolves when Miss Hartford marries, and Phyllis answers an advertisement for a lady's maid. 

Mrs Benton is a most beautiful, elegant woman living in a most beautiful, elegant house.

Silly though it may be, she hopes she never need work for anyone else.


	7. 1925 | 1914-1916

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **FIRST OF ALL.** i fucked up. i fucked up. i fucked up. y'all. i remembered baxter as working for mrs benton for six years, but it's six MONTHS. to say the least, that is a significant difference! i am a fool! ...but i also do not want to go to the effort of changing everything in progress &/or the ending of the chapter previous to this one, so, this is now an alternate universe wherein miss baxter worked for mrs benton for six years instead of six months! i feel very stupid but at least now i have an opportunity to revisit this concept again and do it properly? silver lining?
> 
>  **SECOND OF ALL.** i am not julian fellowes and i do not believe that people can recover from life threatening injuries such as, for example, an estimated 30-35% blood loss because that's about how far you can get without needing a transfusion and dr clarkson said they were Just In Time.......... in two (2) days. add that to the above & also the previous installments of the s6 elements of this fanfiction and we are just playing fast and loose with the canonical timeline here. sorry!
> 
>  **THIRD OF ALL.** i added another chapter to the out-of chapter number because i forgot to account for the epilogue in the original count. :-) (it's a happy epilogue! i promise!) the way we are now i think chapter 8 will be a Past Chapter like chapter 5 was, albeit with several years instead of two days, but don't quote me on that.
> 
>  **content warnings/notes:** canonical suicide attempt, world war i, mentions of original character death & injury.

The household is the largest she has been a part of, and she in its most senior position, for a woman — aside from the housekeeper, of course.

It is a great responsibility, and she does her best to go above and beyond what is required of her. If she makes herself indispensible, she tells herself, she will have security. The thought is naive, of course: nothing in life is sure. But it comforts her, all the same, to keep it.

It isn't nearly so hard as she thought it would be, neither: Mrs Benton is a kind and generous woman, and her trust is given so freely it almost worries her that she has received it. This is her first position as a _lady's maid,_ after all, and though she has been doing hair and sewing dresses since she was a girl…

But no matter her insecurities, she likes the work, and it suits her. 

Everyone she spoke to was right. There is something special about being a lady's maid, and it is not just the wages and the cast-offs. 

* * *

She has been frightened many times in her life, but the terror she has felt in the past several days surpasses almost all of them.

Her heart gets the better of her, and she spends all the time that she can — when she is not with Lady Grantham, when she is not sleeping, when she is not eating, when her work does not necessitate that she be in the boot room or the laundry — with Thomas. She knows it isn't good for her; she knows, but it feels wrong to do anything else. Peace comes during suppertime chats with Mr Molesley, but only just… because she can't tell if he has come to the same conclusion the others seem to have, and so the burden is on the back of her mind.

But it is nice to forget for a few moments.

(Even if forgetting at all makes her feel guilty.)

At his bedside she can mend, at least, and alter, and so she does. Her Ladyship would like a new sash on one of her Sunday dresses.

If she were poetic, she muses, she might see something noteworthy in the work and the circumstances in which she completes it, but she doesn't fancy herself to be a poet anymore than she fancies herself to be an artist or an actress.

Some time after upstairs luncheon, Anna shows up in the doorway with a tray: water and broth and a roll of bread. He won't touch it; that, they both know. But they'll keep trying.

After she sets it upon the side-table, she offers to take over; Phyllis refuses in the most polite manner she can manage.

"Then… may I join you?"

A question that she doesn't know how to answer, at first.

"Do you think he'd mind it?" Anna adds.

They both look to the bed.

"I don't think he's in a position to mind anything at the moment," says Phyllis slowly. 

"Would you?"

She shakes her head.

"I'll be back up, then, I've left some things downstairs…"

It is about an hour later, with both of them working silently near him, that Thomas stirs. 

He lifts his head; Anna is quicker on her feet than Phyllis is, and she is the one to write down the time for Dr Clarkson.

"There's some water for you," Phyllis tells him. "I can help you."

Thomas doesn't seem to hear.

"Still here," he says, weakly.

She nods.

"No," he says, "no, no, no," hoarse.

She grabs his hands and squeezes until the tips of his fingers go white; Anna says, "shhh, Thomas."

They know by now that when he says things like that, he's not inquiring after his company.

* * *

In the summer of 1914 time passes so very strangely: the Season is always a blur, but this is something different. There is the news from the continent, each day more fraught, but there is also…

She's in a different household and a different place in life. No longer is she spending her time making beds and assisting a woman her own age in dressing to _fish:_ her duties are different. She's still a servant, of course; she is still settled on her very low rung upon the ladder, and that will never change.

But Mrs Benton hosts dinners and parties, and goes to races and the opera, chaperones at balls, sits upon committees, and the sophisticated world of a grown and worldly-wise woman is very different than the one she had come to know and understand, and it is almost like her first season all over again.

There is an art to being a lady's maid; Phyllis cultivates it by meeting people.

She has a summer romance — her very first, really, and though she does not lose her head she does come close — but she tries, also, to be practical.

Come autumn and the shooting season she will have ladies' maids for friends all around the country.

* * *

She can count on one hand those of the staff who believe, wholeheartedly and without qualms, that _Mr Barrow has the flu:_

The two housemaids, who arrive early in the morning and leave before tea in the evening.

The kitchen maid, Gertie, who does the same, and besides that has been so often ill herself she is in no place to think much of the constitution of another.

The hallboy, Albert, who is young and finds the under-butler too formidable a figure to do much investigating of his own.

But Daisy is more knowing than she has ever been given credit for; Anna has never succeeded in hiding anything from Mr Bates for very long; Mrs Patmore was given strict instructions from Dr Clarkson — beef broth warmed in an iron pot, steamed kale and spinach, liver and kidney before dark meat, and dark meat before white — with which she put two and two together… and Mr Molesley is not only a very considerate man but a very intelligent one, so when they are standing together in the kitchen courtyard (drinking in the summer sunlight, warming their hands and faces) and he asks, "he's not ill very often, Mr Barrow, is he?" only for her to burst into tears, he is able to draw the right conclusions.

He was with her when she realised, after all.

But they all pretend they do not know, for the sake of the lower four if not for each other. 

At times it makes her want to scream.

* * *

There is no autumn shooting season.

* * *

"But, tell me, how _is_ Thomas? Carson hasn't said for several days now, and Robert won't breathe a word to me…" 

Followed by a weary sigh.

It is too early for her liking to discuss Her Ladyship's marital troubles, but she wishes she had changed the subject to… anything else, anything at all.

Phyllis tries to smile at her in the mirror, but she can see for herself it is wan and tight-lipped. "Mr Barrow," she starts, "is…"

She pauses. She pretends to be taking extra care in placing a hairpin.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Baxter, I shouldn't have asked so out of the blue…"

"It's quite all right, milady," Phyllis says. She doesn't lie, but she does not share the entire truth — Lady Grantham does not want to hear the entire truth, of that she's sure. "He's looking better each day, I think."

"Is he? I've been so worried."

"We've all been worried, milady, but – but yes, he is improving."

Slowly.

"I've always thought so highly of him," says Lady Grantham. The words ring a little more sincere from her than they do from others who have said similar things, but she cannot help but wonder if that is really the case. It would be a lie if she said it herself, after all. "I'll be the first to admit I never thought he could do it, but in the war he was so capable, and perhaps it's very American but it always seemed so sad to me that…"

But whether it is true or not, she does have a great many kind things to say.

* * *

At first, life as she knows it goes on.

When things change, however, it is not slowly. It is like falling down a staircase, lower and lower and lower, one impact after another.

The young Mr Benton, who had fought in South Africa as a subaltern, leaves in August with the Expeditionary Forces as a captain, and in November they learn that he will not be coming back. She spends three days rearranging the wardrobes: colours go into boxes, and the boxes into the dressing room cupboards; gray, lavender and mauve are placed in the back; blacks brought up to the front. She spends another day on the jewelry boxes, one more on the hats and hairpieces, and at the end of the week — Heavens, has it only been a week? — she is sent on an errand to buy a bolt of black crepe.

William, the first footman, enlists shortly after Christmas, because the war is not over after all.

Miss Benton becomes Mrs Rothwell seven months ahead of schedule, and Mr Rothwell is commissioned in February.

Mr Johnson, Sir Benton's valet, goes in April.

And thus begins the London Season.

But though the colours are different, though there are with each passing day fewer and fewer men in the streets, and though the news from day to day often chills her to the bone, her work does not much change: now there are benefit concerts and charity galas. The Bentons make good use of their chequebook. 

Meanwhile, the maids of all the houses in Ovington Square meet weekly after church on Sundays, to knit stockings for the young men in the trenches who do not have wives or mothers to do it for them — a funny thing, in summer, but it sounds as though they are much needed.

It is perhaps the most her work has ever mattered.

* * *

When she nears the room, Thomas is upright, and Anna is misty-eyed.

She doesn't entirely know what she's walked into, and she hovers in the doorway.

"Oh, no, come in, it's fine," Anna says, once she's noticed. She sounds more choked-up than she looks — in fact she's smiling, and Thomas nearly is, too. "I'm just being silly, really, it's – "

"You're not," interrupts Thomas, sharp. They're the most energetic words she's heard from him in what must be weeks now.

She doesn't remember the last time he spoke with any intention behind his voice at all.

Anna wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and smiles, almost. She stands. "We were just talking," she says. "If that's the time, I'd best be seeing to Lady Mary…"

And she leaves without giving either of them a chance to say more.

There are many things she could say to Thomas. She settles on a question that is both safe and banal: "how are you feeling?"

Thomas opens his mouth but says nothing; Phyllis gives him the water-glass of broth — they realised very quickly that if he drank water first he'd take very little else on top of it — and follows his hands with her own as he sips from it, taking it from him when he seems unwilling to continue.

It was only yesterday he managed to hold the glass with his own fingers.

He answers her question with one of his own: "could you tell me something?"

His voice is once again soft and broken.

"What?" she asks.

"Anything. 'Bout… somebody else. Or you. Dunno."

"Is that what Anna was doing?"

Under ordinary circumstances she supposes a question with such an obvious answer would earn her something pithy in return.

It doesn't, now. He almost smiles.

"Wasn't here," he says, "during the war, and," _how could you possibly want to talk about the war,_ she wonders, "didn't hear everythin', 'cause it were just miss…" He closes his eyes and leans his head back upon the pillow, the crown of his head brushing the wall. "But Lady Sybil and Anna, they got on."

When he speaks he seems to leave half of the words in his head, but she thinks she understands.

"Can you?" Thomas adds. 

She doesn't know what stories she can tell that have not been soiled in her memory or his: she does not like thinking of herself during the war, and it is too painful to think of her halcyon days before it in London — and before that…

"'Salways home, if you need ideas," he says, and her heart wrenches, "maybe… from before," and he's opened his eyes again, turned his head if not lifted it. His undereyes are so dark and sunken he looks as though he were bruised, and his skin is still pallid, his lips nearer to blue than to red.

"Before what?"

"Before I was born."

And Phyllis thinks she might burst into tears, but she takes his hand and she says the first thing that comes to her mind: "The year you were born," _breathe,_ she tells herself, "we moved from Pendleton, to live with my cousins. We – we didn't have to go very far, but for a young girl it was a great difference, being on the other side of the canal. Away from my friends."

He nods.

"But on my first day of school," she continues, and she is glad to be holding his hand so that she cannot wring her fingers until they cramp, "I was sat between Abigail Brown and – "

"Maggie."

"Yes."

Nothing in his face changes. "Go on, then."

"I think Mr Gordon was very glad that I had come along, because before they'd shared a bench with Clara Cooper…"

* * *

All at once, in July of 1916, she begins to hear from home again.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/)!


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